Fact Sheet: Women and Tobacco
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Global Trends
"Women smokers are likely to increase as the percentage of the total. Women are adopting more dominant roles in society; they have increased spending power...All in all that makes women a prime target..."
—Tobacco Reporter, 19981
Tobacco control is a critical women's health issue. Today, four times as many men smoke than women but, while smoking rates among men have peaked,2 cigarette smoking among women is still increasing.3 This is especially true in developing countries and a number of southern, central and eastern European countries.
To the tobacco industry, sales of tobacco products to women and girls in developing countries represent one of the largest product marketing opportunities in the world.4
Two hundred and fifty million women smoke.5 If the percent of women who smoke in developing countries rise to the levels of smoking found among men, the number of women smokers in the next generation will double to more than 500 million.6
Because women who smoke die from the same tobacco-caused diseases as men, such an increase will have dramatic effects on women's health and on the health and income of their families.1,7,8 In addition, women smokers are also at risk for developing cancer of the reproductive organs and osteoporosis.9 Smoking also contributes to poverty in ways that especially affect women's health.10
Despite the known dangers to women, for decades the tobacco companies have targeted women and girls using marketing themes that associate tobacco use with the universal desire of women for independence and freedom and to be more glamorous and beautiful and with products designed specifically to appeal to women, such as flavored cigarettes and fashionable packaging.11
Today the tobacco industry is using the same compelling themes to attract women in developing nations.
However, it is possible to prevent the predicted increase in tobacco use by adopting policies and programs that have already been proven to reduce tobacco use. By curtailing tobacco marketing, adopting strong health warnings, increasing the price and decreasing the affordability of tobacco products, expanding protection against secondhand smoke and carrying out effective public education and counter marketing campaigns, it is possible to prevent the predicted epidemic of tobacco-related illness and death in women around the world.
The Numbers of Women and Girls Using Tobacco in Developing Countries is Increasing
- Tobacco use rates for women and girls vary dramatically from county to country. An average of 22 percent of women in developed countries are daily smokers, but only an average of 9 percent of women in developing nations smoke.5
- Cigarette smoking historically always rises first among men. Cigarette smoking rose rapidly decades ago among women in many developed countries, such as Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, to levels that are comparable to male smoking and are now declining. However, the numbers are still rising in other developed countries where women began smoking in large number more recently,5 and, most significantly, in developing countries.
- Wide disparities also exist from country to country in smoking rates of young girls. For example, in the US, Chile, Greece, Uruguay and many other countries there is no difference in tobacco use between girls and boys. In contrast, in Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, China, much of India and other countries far fewer girls use tobacco than boys.12
- Increased rates of smoking among women are influenced by a number of factors. They are influenced by the changing roles and economic status of women as economies grow and by changing social and cultural factors as nations modernize.13 However, it is often targeted tobacco marketing to women that creates a link between tobacco use and these social and economic changes.1
- The number of women smokers in the developing world will greatly increase if no action is taken to stop the tobacco companies from targeting women and girls.
- Even if the growth of smoking rates among women can be contained, the growth in the female population in the developing world alone will dramatically increase the number of women smokers.